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An Italian Straw Hat


A comedy in three acts by Eugene Labiche and Marc Michel, performed on December 3rd, 4th and 5th, 1964. It was produced by Mr. J. R. Fisher and an extract from his programme notes is reproduced below:

No doubt the authors of the play regarded it purely as a piece of entertainment but devotees of the Theatre of the Absurd or of the Marx Brothers or of the Goons will recognise the serious principle on which it is based: that is, that once the audience has allowed itself to be beguiled into believing a single illogicality or unlikelihood, it will quickly find itself hurried, willy nilly into a bizarre world of absurdities which somehow seem both logical and credible. So here: accept a horse with a hunger for straw hats; accept a bridegroom chivalrous enough to spend his wedding day searching for straw hats; accept a few mistaken identities and a coincidence or two and soon you will share with Fadinard the wild surrealist nightmare that pursues him on his wedding night.






My word, but it's hot!